Objectifying the Gaze

DOI

The history of western philosophy and art reveals a complex relation drawn between sight and knowledge, light and truth, the human gaze and subjectivity. In the 21st century this relationship takes a new turn, with the introduction of new technological means, especially in computational neuroscience and machine vision, that aim at recording, quantifying, analyzing, reproducing and automating the gaze. This pictorial essay is a multilayered investigation applying new modes of technological objectification to creative representations of eery, uncanny images of blindness and displaced eyeballs, in the history of art and cinema. It highlights the problematic nature of this form of objectification, and calls into question the means, assumptions and conclusions that are brought about in the process of objectifying the gaze, by pointing out the culturally saturated substrate already embedded in the act of viewing.